Rotten
by malpractice
Summary: The only way to Snow's heart is through the heart of the people, and the Prince of them is kneeling at the dungeons of her castle. OQ Enchanted Forest, AU.
1. The Mirror

It so happens that I shipped OQ pretty normally until this idea took over my brain. Now I'm crazy.

This story takes place during Regina's mad revengeful journey.

Hope y'all give me a chance and let me know your opinion. Also, I'm beta-less so any mistake is on me.

Enjoy!

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine. I only had money to buy Lana and that pretty much broke me.

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The mirror reflected one flawless image, delineated by porcelain skin and heavy curls of onyx hair. At nighttime her skin always seemed to turn paler, a singularity Regina had grown to despise. The color gave birth to thoughts of _her_ , like everything did nowadays. Ironic that snow had covered the grounds of the forest earlier this year.

It must be winter in her heart too.

Still the woman on the glass looks almost angelic; stripped off of layers of black garments and washed out of maquillage, she doesn't look as mature as life has forced her to be, nor as disgraceful. Her sins remain sheltered beneath pristine flesh of exquisite features, giving away not a single fraction of her vile soul.

Someone so drenched with dark potential shouldn't appear so harmless, no; but Regina had learned from the hard, personal way that most of them often _do_.

She was reflecting about fallen masks and spoiled secrets when the fireplace cracked behind her, little bright sparkles screaming that the blazes were about to give up. It's almost on cue, she thinks, to be enwrapped by the shadows at this precise moment. There's still enough clarity left for her to pull her entire hair above one shoulder, carefully placing the hairbrush onto the dresser, as composed as she'd ever be. Decency would likely demand more dramatic reactions out of her, though if there's any scraps of honor left inside her at all, it's doubtful to be picked just now.

Soon the whisper of a light is gone but he's not. Her gaze goes instinctively south, eyes scanning the blackish space above her shoulders as if she'd see him.

They both know she won't, even if she had any desire to. The privilege of her pretty façade hands him the power over darkness, maybe, merely because it suits him better. She's compassionate that way.

"Well?" She inquires, one eyebrow quirked however unlikely it is to be seen. "Are you going to say something or just stand there all night?"

The hysterical giggle reaches her brain long before it does her ears. A buried part of her still cringes at it, wants nothing more than the haunting sound to go away. It wasn't long ago that she was hesitating to rip a Unicorn's heart, after all; no matter how blurry the lines had become with all the blood spilt ever since.

His comical accent cuts through memories of faceless bodies falling dead on the ground. "Oh, haven't you missed me, dearie?"

Reflexively, Regina almost turns to follow his voice, yet grips the edge of her seat instead. Her once flowing blood had started to clot with sickening rage already, derma itching at every transpiring spot regardless of her own resolve. Foolish petulance is what glues her to her spot, in any way. She'd never give him the satisfaction of admitting how further he got into her skin.

Determination can't extinguish the frustration out of her tone, nevertheless. "What do you want, Rumplestiltskin?" She snaps, eyelids shutting as if that could make him disappear.

Naturally, it only brings him closer.

Backlit by natural lights outside, his figure looms right behind her, chin almost leaning against her bare shoulder. The chill is irrepressible this time and she has half a mind to suspect that had been intended all along. She doesn't fear him anymore, perhaps; but she is _disgusted_ by him.

His reflection on the mirror smiles at that - a somber grin that inflicts he's able to read her so easily like he does to the rest of the world. His next words feel like a petty revenge.

"I hear the Kingdom isn't welcoming you so _warmly_."

Her neck snaps towards him, closeness quickly forgotten as his remark cuts _deep_. She felt the muscles of her face flexing into a scold, a snarl of some kind waiting to leave her throat in a rather animalistic way. The rough tip of his nose was a hair-away from scratching hers now, locked gazes watching as each emotion reached surface and took hold of their bodies.

What Rumplestiltskin shows is amusement, however, his reaction a reflection she's quite resentful to see.

She spoke her mind through gritted teeth; the brown of her eyes almost _liquid_ with the fierceness of her words. "They _will_ love me."

"Oh, but they won't" his reply comes fast; that mockful tone of his so filled with cruel cleverness it's hard to distrust him. "They _don't_."

In a ridiculous show of wounded pride, Regina faces away again, chest lifting with way too much air.

She's halfway through an offensive comeback when his shadow stands straight once more, fingers gesturing around the air to emphasize a breaking point. " _However_ " he retakes and it helps her to remember something.

Particularities aside, Rumplestiltskin isn't _her_ : he wouldn't come all this way for the mere pleasure of _bragging_.

To mess with her head alone isn't his _modus operandi_ , even if it's so easy to forget it. So it doesn't surprise her to be drowned in blinding anticipation over his next words, for it means he'll have a solution.

He can _help_ her.

He can give her Snow.

And if it takes her to endure his presence, if it chains her yet again to another deal, it doesn't matter.

She will do what it takes.

She _has_ to, even though she doesn't immediately comprehend the subtext of his resolution.

"That doesn't mean they can't love someone _else_."

His shriek of insane delight turns her voice harsher than intended, a tone improved day by day ever since she became a royal. "And _what_ do you mean by that?" She raged, eyes wide although he was back in the shadows. "I'm their _only_ Queen. They must be loyal to _me_."

"That's exactly what I mean, my dear. _You_. _Are_. _Their_. _Queen_ " he recited back at her. "Don't you think there's something missing... By your side?"

She softly jumped with his breath on the back of her neck, nearness so out of a sudden it made her head buzz. But once she blinked his body was leaning against her dresser, an unreadable expression staring down at her.

When understanding finally dawned on her, it showed. The transition of her initial silence into an incredulous smile prepared Rumplestiltskin for what came next.

She laughed.

A travelling sound out of the back of her chest and throat and _soul_ , it echoed freely around the quiet atmosphere of her chambers. The look on his face insisted that he _meant_ it and that only made Regina beam larger. Then, nodding skeptically, the tease slipped her reddish pouting lips, "My _beloved_ imp, are you offering me your hand?"

" _Not me who shall marry thee_." He sang as delusional as one could appear. No will inside her was enough to keep her smile in place. It died as quickly as it'd bloom. " _Your Majesty_ " one gold-dusted finger points her "need a husband."

Her gut twisted violently at the word, riot against times she wanted one but couldn't have and had one, but didn't want. She smelled history repeating itself and fought every fiber in her being that felt like _lighting up_ the Dark One.

Face edging closer to his, the whispery touch of her voice reminisced a snake. "You must be crazier than they say." She slurred, anger masquerading the uncertainty floating over her head. Demented fallacious man that he was, he was yet to fail in stuffing her head with questions while peppering her putrid heart with a tiny bit more of black ink.

" _Crazier_ " he hummed, smiling fully at her now. "But am I wrong?"

When she's proved incapable of answering, the imp carries on, his pacing disturbing the quietude of the night. She finds herself staring forward like a motionless lamb watching the tip of an approaching arrow.

"There's a prisoner here at your castle-"

"There are hundreds of prisoners in my castle." Regina points, brought back from her idiotic absorption.

She's ignored. "A _thief_."

" _This_ is what this is about? By all means, take the subject for all I care. My dungeons are too crowded anyway."

"I do want the thief myself!" He exclaimed, an excitement about his voice that couldn't quite be placed. Until. "But you shall want him _more_."

Both of her hands gripped the edge of her dresser until her knuckles turned white. "Now you're just wasting my time. Spit it out, _beast_."

"You are contenting yourself with their fear... When you could earn their doubt. When you could pick their attention to get their support."

"And you think marrying a common, filthy criminal is the way?" She bellowed, angrier because the game kept on going despite her objections. Heedless of her outbursts, name callings and higher tones didn't get to him. It likely never would.

"Not common, my dear." He said, once again displayed at the imager, their gazes sustained on end through the spotless glass. "Do we have a deal?"

"How can I trust this will work? How can I know this is not one of your tricks?"

One corner of his lips twitched into a naughty grin. "Well, if it doesn't... You can always kill him; can you not?"

She can smell the bluffs and it's all over; it just didn't mean the bait of ignorant captivation hadn't been bitten. This is the moment when she has to weigh the price and measure how far is she willing to go for it.

And it's too late now, she knows.

Revenge has eaten her whole flesh until the bones and now there's only the corpse and a response:

 _As far as it takes_.

"What should I do in return?" She asks and he revels in victory before dismissing her with a hand.

"Oh, this and that. I need you to cut off all trade with King George's realm."

His cynic casualty doesn't keep the crease out of her brows. "King George? Why?"

For a moment his characteristic façade cracked apart, words running out of his mouth faster than the motion of his jaw. "I need him bankrupt, what do you care?" he spat.

Slowly, so very calm so she could watch, he lifted his hand until it cupped one side of her pristine face. It felt softer than expected, but wrong all the same. Just as fiercely stubborn as she had been before, Regina refused to inch away with all she was worth. Each journey of his tongue, teeth and lips could be heard as he broke it to her at last.

"A Queen like you... Must wed a _Prince_."

This turn it didn't take her so long to comprehend. "Robin Hood." She mumbled, almost as if her body had been holding the answer for far too long.

The name much infamous to forget, it wasn't alarming to have Rumplestiltskin mentioning it. The Prince of Thieves had made enemies as he had made a legion of followers and neither had taken his prison at her castle lightly. Lovers wanted him gone, rebellions thrown over his name. Adversaries claimed his death, or merely his person transferred to their own private cell.

It's only when the imp whooped a giggle that Regina senses herself frowning dubiously, realizing she doesn't know who the thief _is_. She'd been too far gone into her Snow White paranoia to care about a neanderthal stupid enough to think he could steal from the Queen and get away with it.

" _Ding ding ding ding ding!_ " Rumplestiltskin chants, lifting both arms in the air like he'd been caught.

Her eyelids lowered on their own accord, throat flexing because all at once there's an acidic taste of repulsion intoxicating her mouth. The hole at the very center of her seems to be sucking everything in, and the space is so largely hollow everything stops making sense. She gives one shake of her head and it's pitiful, somehow; if only the man in her room cared enough to pity. "I can't force a man to marry me."

I can't force _myself_ to marry either, she thinks what she doesn't say.

For the very first time Regina feels an irrational urge to look for him around the room. Because they're both aware she can force someone to do nearly everything, except what she needs.

Acceptance wasn't the same as submission.

As it was, Rumplestiltskin stays mercilessly in the shadows, not a flicker of his presence captured by human eye. The only reassurance he grants her, it's a twist reminder of his own words. "Perhaps now it's the time to settle for one's fear instead of love."

Like the chilly late breeze, she can sense it when he's gone. There's a dreadful silence bearing down on her suddenly, one that has nothing to do with the mere absence of sounds. Her eyes cast themselves back to the mirror in a magnetic wave of inevitability, and no one but that foolish girl is staring back at her.

Regina contains the urge to smash it.

Rumplestiltskin's reflection is a far more accurate view.


	2. Kneeled

It took me so long to update this (I have no excuses).

Thanks everyone for the reviews and alerts!

 **Disclaimer** : Still not mine. Still beta-less. Some references to violence here, so if you don't like this sort of thing you know what to do.

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Late twilight sent shy traces of tangerine light against the castle's walls, unfamiliar colorations that might give some the impression of peace. Those illuminations follow her, fluctuating, as her needle high heels thuds against the floor with poise, echoing her passage for anyone foolish enough to get in her way.

Regina doesn't race this, rather makes her stroll twice slower. She had plenty of time to dissolve this event, moped around the unfairness of her fate enough counts in the privacy of her room to have her resolve cracking just now. What's bound to happen is merely means to an end, she repeats, and almost hears Cora's cooing at the foot of her ear: _I'm so proud of you, Regina_.

The smile she sends a guard's way at the start of the spiral stairs is not that different from Mother's after all. Shrugging such disturbing associations aside, she downs each of the steps gracefully, nodding curtly to another one of her men as she reaches bottom to a small gate that's quick to open.

The smell of the Dungeons reminded her accurately of death. It's raw scented and fairly substantial - intoxicating energies pouring out of every passing cell like smoke. Not for once does her focus falter from the entry at the end of the hallway, despite loud commotions emerging at her presence. She's way mature nowadays to pretend they're not out of rage.

Two heavy doors scratched loudly together before going separate ways. Instinctively her eyes spotted him down on the floor, neck hung low and toned arms limp at his side. Oh the irony of his position makes the little Rumpelstiltskin inside her head giggle hysterically. She would laugh herself too, if this wasn't sick as it was.

One gesture of a hand sends the knights away, the identical scratch informing they're alone at last. For a while Regina doesn't move or say a word, simply scrutinizes him mercilessly from the golden-colored crown of his head to the deplorable condition of his clothes. There's a minor squeal at each end of his breaths that alerted his pain much like a tea kettle boiling minutes on-end.

It appears she'd got a little too late to prevent any _techniques_ , she observes, studying the tense set of his shoulders - something _must_ be broken - and the carmin spots of dry blood painted all around his ripped garments.

He couldn't look further from a King if he were to _try_.

The remarkable thud of her steps causes his breath to momentarily hitch; true to her spirit, her pace is just as careful as her consideration of him is. Seconds allow realization to wash over her in an all-encompassing wave. Suddenly it's all so simple the stars might've as well aligned.

The man before her, this righteous criminal so feared by others: here he kneels at her _feet_.

Regina could make him do _anything_.

It might be alarming the way this superiority still thrills her. It likely drenched her voice with ruthless arrogance, just the way Mother would have her sounding like. Composed, but accurately authoritarian.

"Look up." She ordered, already expecting the pause it took him to comply.

In the next breath all she saw was frozen blue. Piercing, throbbing oceans staring back at her, grudge depriving his eyes of any warmth. Regina didn't expect him to look so beaten, although the surprise is nothing short of naive. The angry skin of his cheekbone is swallowed, purple and black battling for dominion over the bruised spot. A huge gash outlines one of his brows like a hat, sanguine traces of fluid still scatterly glued to his shaggy face. The fact that his pupils were displayed so wide, so _defiant_ , could purely confirm obscure tales surrounding his name. Alive unlike the rest of him, it screamed for every part that no longer could.

The infamous Robin Hood sustained her gaze as if he knew her resolve could be shaken, and by doing so, he immediately granted her only one single alternative.

To shake his.

"Stand." is the next command to leave her lips.

Curiosity bubbles up inside her effortlessly at the rising anger reshaping his features. The beast in her understands the threatened beast in him, perhaps, so when she forces the sadistic smirk out of her expression it's enduring something akin to respect. His square jaw flexes several times as a private debate afflicts him. Stupid boy, she thought. Stupid, prepotent boy.

It's another second or two until he huffs a breath and inches forward, hoarse groans drawn out of his throat with frantic pants. At some point his respiration nears a sob and Regina has half a mind to wish she'd rip her heart out for this - _almost_ overtaken by relatives of regret. When the thief's hand finally leans on the putrid ground, it's already too much and his body holds nor strength nor balance to carry on. Robin falls onto his side, piercing screams filling the walls and awakening its ghosts.

At least now she knows the arm is what's broken.

Loud cries keep on coming, the convulsions taking hold of him impeding his weight to shift out of the injured limb.

Involuntarily, the muscles of her throat burn; _that_ girl who loved horses and daylight and a stable boy forcing Regina to fist both hands in order to not act on impulse. She has to find the will to quickly shut that stupid girl up, because this is leverage and the only step to take after leverage is power.

And power is all that's left to seek.

She's fairly certain the black is rooting further into the fibers of her heart as she lowers down on her calves. The thief mumbles incoherently now, seemingly lost between two planes where neither endows him mercy. A twisted serenity within her took its time examining his torment, fingers inching toward him with a delicate tilt of her head.

At the contact, he quit breathing altogether. "Are you scared of me?" She then asked. A pensive edge to her voice matched her dazzled eyes. As feather-light as a lover's caress, her fingers didn't flinch away at the touch of warm tears and saliva, instead spreading them like artistic clay.

He looked enchanting somehow. Maybe the allure of his pain engorged her ego, for she was the one able to cure - the God of his torture, his _only_ angel. Maybe her insanity had reached irrevocable levels. Whichever way, right then between his moans and the orange sun and the fetid floor, she decided he shall be hers.

 _Like a puppy!_

Her delight is short-lived though, volatile as any other. In a wink of an eye the hand that's petting is the one gripping his chin, roughly, stretching his neck and making him wail. " _Answer me if you don't want a_ _pair_ _of broken arms_." Regina grits between her teeth. Her eyes throb as if they're ready to pop out of her head, flaring nostrils orchestrating a mask she's not sure she'd want to face. No wonder they call her the Evil Queen.

She can feel malice striping through her veins like hot liquid.

With encouraging nods she watched him babble, until something sounding awfully similar to "Please" reached her ears. She inched her head closer until every scent of him could be smelled. Sweat, mud and excretions didn't rock her will to chain his stare thoroughly.

It was barely as vivid as minutes ago. "Are you in pain?" She probed with what resembled commiseration.

Oxygen sliced his throat in several stutters. "Y-yes." Then, firmer, an insistence that only comes out of despair. " _Yes_."

There's a pull at the corners of her mouth that curls it upward, bit by bit, until she's close to beaming. The suicidal drops of tangerine light seemed to be offering its goodbye as they cast over his begging eyes. It's just when she sees the surrender she'd been waiting all along that she sultrily speaks:

"Remember that the next time you dishonor your Queen."

He's still trying to comprehend her words the moment she pushes him back onto the ground. Hardly.

Even on his back, the harsh encounter is enough to hurt him regardless. She could only imagine the degree of the bruises she couldn't actually see. As his brusque puff of air echoes through the room once more, Regina stood up with an overly annoyed sigh. She might be a sadist, yes, yet surely sadists have _other_ business to attend as well.

His voice piercing through her thoughts is just as unexpected as the clarity to it. Breathless, albeit audible, she thinks she hears some sort of hostility back to his tune. Not so far from a child's tantrum, she muses. "What do you want from me?" Robin Hood asks.

The laughter she wanted to give does not flourish, dark humor abruptly leaving her. No answer should be requested for she was the Queen, and answered to _no one;_ and in case she wanted something, all she had to do was _take it_.

Begrudgingly, she still snaps: "What I want doesn't matter." Glancing out the minuscule window, the darkening sky fits suitably with her lower, almost melancholic voice. "But it's certainly not _you_."

The thief says nothing in return, whether over exhaustion or insurance. She feels she's overshared either way, dropped her weapons too inadvertently, so she's quick to reiterate. "You made quite a popularity for yourself, outlaw, I'll give you that." Peeking over her shoulder, his body remains immobile on the floor. She imagines his eyelids were closed, though can't be sure as she briskly focused outside again, a biting chuckle exiting her lips. "There's a whole bunch of gypsies _camping_ outside my castle, for heaven's sake!"

She turns around with a hostile smile that submerges at the face of disinterested silence. Drawing a deep breath, she straightens her posture before pacing around the dungeon like there was something remarkably worth-seeing about it.

The gasp comes after a few seconds of forged examination.

Her back is to him, but if the shifting noises along the sea of tiny rocks are any indicator, the picture of him is indubitable. Out of the corner of her eye she's roughly certain he's sitting up on his recently healed criminal ass. The upcoming shadows of the night say she's running out of time, so Regina continues. "They _do_ love you." Furrowing her brows at the reason she couldn't yet grasp, she spun on her feet to face him. "Why?"

Despite no longer injured, his appearance was altogether the same. Big glittery eyes were the single distinctive feature about him, outspread to their maximum as it gawk at her. "You- w-what... _You did this_?" He stammered, divided between horror and astonishment. His gaze kept flicking from her to his arm as though somehow the connection might be lost over this invisible bridge.

Setting her jaw with zero intentions of reassurances, Regina barked: "Do you recall what I said about answering my questions?"

The threat served to halt his movements, although not out of fear, she dreadfully noticed. Consciousness has seemed to bring his confidence a little bit back, and she finds herself muffling the urge to mock what a _big man_ he was. Instead, she waits as he takes a second to remember her question in the first place.

"Is it because you give them things?" She probes beforehand, in ridiculous rushed syllables that has her swallowing her girlish agitation down. "I offered them _everything_. More than you ever could."

"At the expense of a life." Robin points, and it's probably the arch of his eyebrow that has her fuming with rage.

One familiar scold deforming her expression, she hisses towards his kneeling figure. "What does it matter?" Her crazy glare turns her all the more insane. "To kill a spoiled little brat isn't worth a peaceful life?"

A smirk crossed over his mouth for a fleeting millisecond, as if what he knew Regina wouldn't ever in a million years. His accent squeezing her gut into a tight knot, he answered with an ease so contrasting to her hysteria. "That would be the opposite of a peaceful life."

A bitter grin emerges at his words. Then, lifting her brows with cynic understanding, she mockingly bowed. "Very well. I shall no longer attempt to perjure your follower's _honor_ " she acquiesced, pausing solely for effect. " _You_ will."

Face scrunching in confusion, his eyes narrowed until blue was barely seen. "What do you mean by that?"

Unprecedently, her pulse accelerates as if her nerves had been plotting an ambush of perfect timing all along. When her voice resonates through the stone walls, she hears herself but it's something darker, something _else_ speaking through her vocal chords. It's both freeing and terrifying to not fight the Evil Queen any longer. Surrender feels like a life-long craved night of sleep.

"What I mean is that you are to do the services I've proven incapable of so far. You'll tell your friends of the Queen's ultimate benevolence and how _deeply_ she sorrows her deceased husband-"

"They'll _never_ believe me." He cuts her off with what could only be outrage.

Regina smiled knowingly to the truth of his words, but didn't seem afflicted over such shortcomings. "They won't. But they might believe _us_." She gave two long steps until her feet were before his knees, an expression so collected she might as well be reciting a tale. "The story of the lonely Queen and the _ethical_ prisoner who fell madly in love with each other."

Both her eyebrows arched awaiting a reply other than the stupefied gape of his mouth. Casually cheery, she prodded, "That'd would be pretty believable, don't you-"

"What if I refuse?" He spoke above her, at last meeting her brownish stare. The perpetuous crimp above his lips insinuated his disgust was starting to reach physical proportions.

It had her reacting in kind. "Then I fry your entire tribe of friends alive, one by one, and have you _watching_."

If there was any awakened humanity inside her, it might've been startling to know she meant each word. So vehemently she can picture it, almost drop her _original_ plan altogether so she can _prove_ this ultimatum to him, Regina _isn't_ bluffing. Collecting her poise back, however, she thinks her tone is edging on _sweet,_ too much amicable to pass on as genuine. " _See_? We're _all_ granted choices. It's up to you to decide which is the most honorable one."

The dazzled panic on his face speaks far more than his silence, and in case it were to be broken, Regina's steps are quick to avoid it and walk away.

She doesn't look back. All the reverse way through the screaming cells, faceless knights and heavy doors, her numbness is too heavy to give room for any other thing.

The sunset has burnt out into a forgotten pool of gold by then, a tragedy in the name of each star. It's when her camouflage finally feels at home between the dark, empty corridors of the castle.

As she makes it to the solitude of her chambers, standing there, curiously apathetic, all there is left are naked facts:

A crowded heart in her chest, a bitter victory in her pocket and no ring on her finger.

Nothing else.


	3. Married Man

Thank you so much for the amazing reviews I've been getting, as well for the alerts. Yay!

Not my favorite chapter, but, meh. Tell me your thoughts, ideas and corrections all the same because frankly, it works like dopamine.

Happy New Year!

 **Disclaimer** : Same.

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The cadence of her lungs echoed three times louder inside her dizzy, overwhelmed brain. Her taste buds still held the irk pungency of puke and this time Regina knew sickness had nothing to do with the forged romanticism consuming the entire castle.

A few more steps and she'd reach the door.

A few more steps and this would be done and over; and the flowers, and her crystal shoes and white lace of her dress would all play its rightful part of her set-up love with the filthy thief.

Reasons that'd earlier persuaded her had been mercilessly starting to flee away.

Her hand burns against the sharp edges of the stone wall, and it strikes a memory of Leopold's golden door on her fingertips a few hours back. Regina tries to brush away the memories just as she brushes away newborn tears.

Her overflowing mind willingly betrays her, though.

" _This is insane._ " she hears, as if her body is standing behind the half-closed door again.

"Robin, this is insane, mate." the gypsy insisted – one of his friends she would never care to discern the name. The likes of him concerned her till the extent of witnessing the wedding and confirming its veracity outside the castle.

As for the rest, he could be the chief of pixie dust traffic and she wouldn't remember him.

"Look me in the eye and tell me all of this is real." He tenaciously dug. "That this isn't some misguided plan of yours-"

"It is real, John." Robin finally reacts. Like the prisoner she'd met one single time in the past, he sounds equally worn out.

It doesn't keep John from urging on: "But she's _evil_!"

The offense scarcely registers.

Soon she was listening to a tone that _didn't_ match the image of a dirty man on the floor by far, and plants in the back of her head the specter of a leader ordering an anarchy of misfits. "No, she's _not_." Robin cuts off, so viciously it almost seems genuine. "I know you worry about me and that I can understand. But do not try to take this from me for only what you've heard-"

" _Heard_? Man, I saw her taking a life with my own bare eyes. And you know what she did Robin? Huh? She cleaned her fucking heels onto the man's chest. She'd just ripped his heart out and she cared about the fucking _mud_ on her shoes. How can you love _that_?"

Now John's tale grants plenty of time to afflict her, one stretching silence from inside out the room. She's surrendered abruptly into guilt and shame, self-loathing flushing her skin and speeding up her blood race.

And accurately to his words, the present does her justice - Regina was _this_ close to bursting through the doors and making an all too real demonstration of her cruelty. His trivial heart would pulse hotly inside her palm, and this useless _verm_ would _plea_ to have his chest used as a _foot supporter_. The payout would come so naturally, so _plain_ – if she couldn't make them love her, after all, she could just as easily kill each and every one who _didn't_.

The mere idea of this punishment drives her wild.

Itching, however, she retracted her hands off and away from the doorknob, domesticating this sort of reckless behavior with a vigor she hadn't had in months.

Self-discipline isn't in vain, though.

Snow's chest will feel much better under her shoes.

"I'm not saying she's a saint." Robin reasoned then, albeit weaker on his resolve. No will inside her attempted to judge his fragile defense.

She hardly had one of her own.

"No, she's the devil _itself_." John didn't wait to retort, his perspicuous intent triggering a standard eye roll out of her. The _resemblances_ that'd made him the outlaw's best man are roughly evident. "And you didn't answer me. Do you love her?"

" _Yes_." The three letters slurs on his tongue, far too quick to be valid. To her distant ears, he sounded like anything beyond a petulant child. "Of course I love her."

The other man predictably sneers. "I don't believe you." Robin starts a vain protest as the next words to reach his way were proved straight and effective to steal his voice.

"And what about _Marian_?"

In the shadows, Regina went still, dry lips sealing at the suggestive note of an unfamiliar name.

A sudden weight in the very center of her chest almost kept her from listening to the rest of the discussion. Within her system there's a side that reacts violently to the notion of destroying someone else's chance at love.

"What about her?" he responds, wielding such enforced defiance that Regina pondered why bother the charade.

"The girl you couldn't stop thinking about ever since you first saw her? Marian, whom you told me you'd _die_ if you couldn't have her."

"Oh for fuck's sake, I was _drunk_. It was a harmless infatuation, and either way, Marian is gone, remember that?"

"What if she weren't? What if you find each other again? We can track her down, Robin, if you just-"

"I _don't_ want her!" Robin bellowed, and being so lost into his wrecked love affair her shoulders actually twitched at the volume of it. "What's so hard for you to understand? I am to wed the woman I love _today_. If you can't support me on this, if you can't back me up and stand my _happiness_ , then you're free to leave."

That he wasn't, all three of them knew - it was just one of the many lies shadowed by Robin's outburst.

And maybe to a different audience his ardor could have passed out as sincere. But if there was one thing Regina still understood about broken souls it'd be misdirect anger; and that was the majority of what saturated his tone.

"Alright." John diplomatically conceded, seconds flying by without a noise. "I'll stay. I'll stand by your side and support your decision as I always have. But friend… You do not look _happy_. You don't look happy at all."

She hadn't needed eyes to understand the recurrent silence meant closure.

By the time the opposite door opened, shrieking like a thirsty hyena, it was just as serenely shutting close. It wasn't loud or intentionally dramatic. The deserted melody of it had solely amplified the misfortune of their shared destiny.

Regina stared at the abstract figures of shaped gold long enough to straighten her spine decisively. Ignoring the violent, unfamiliar jabs against her ribcage, one petite hand pushed the door away.

At the far corner of the living room, Robin Hood had his well-dressed back to her, facing outdoors through the square window pane. Her unannounced presence didn't seem to surpass the charm of the landscape. Outside the day is icy and colorless, a reality neither Regina nor her servants could have tried to sugarcoat.

Oddly at first sight, she chokes an irrational urge to explain him she doesn't want this _either_. The lonesome portrait of his brooding renders her voiceless, stifles her with a rush of unpredicted sympathy. She'd already been the living picture of him years ago, modeling clothes and crowns for a future that wasn't her own.

She wants to tell him her morning is twice as gray, but doesn't, because no one had told her that then.

Instead, she chewed those words like razorblades, and walked further inside.

The artless clarity enclosing the room makes her squint, heels alerting her company at long last. Somehow it's his stubborn apathy the fuel she'd been needing all this time: her face hollows as her masochist temper reaches surface and breathes her in. Crudely artificial, the first remark to leave her throat carries the humorless sarcasm she's so deft at impersonating. "Oh, I hope your friend is not upset. Is he going to be okay?"

The set of his shoulders aggravates as her voice chimes.

His posture reminds her of their first and last meeting, when he was belittled and in pain. The only ache Robin feels now is one she'd have recognized from miles away: an anguish that's born out of concealed ire, and powerless resentment.

So when Robin decides to speak, not curving or flashing a glance her way, the harsh accent of his tone holds no sort of potential to disturb her. Experience was on her side. "Unlike me, yes, he will."

A sour smile flickers on the corner of her rosy lips. "Oh, don't be so hard on royalty. There's a garden here if you're ever in need to smudge yourself."

He ignores the insult, like she'd imagined he would; it gives her time to study the regal fit of his attire and decent haircut. At the very least he looks _civilized,_ and with a made-up mind and inebriated brain, Regina concedes she could somewhat work with _that_.

Cold fingers clasping together, her visit is belatedly justified. "I need you to sign some papers." She starts, midway through a joke about him printing his hand on the paper in case he couldn't write when Robin turned and both of them lost track of their loaded minefield.

This _wasn't_ the man in her dungeons.

This couldn't be the same brute she'd refused to meet again in fear _she_ 'd be the one to back out of the deal. The man who repulsed her didn't have a tan on his skin that reminded her of late night breeze in summer nights, and his eyes weren't blue like the ocean she'd once cruised, but blue as the sky, and fountains and whatever heaven was supposed to resemble.

The man who repulsed her would never match the one she was seeing weren't for the pink scar above his eyebrow, shaped like a hat and a verdict.

Regina closed her lips together so she wouldn't lick them. It's the coldest day of the coldest of winters, so it doesn't explain the heat washing over her in one nerve-wrenching shock.

It dawns on him just as late.

Some whisper of a thought believes this is the very peak of her downfall: Robin's stare is piercing, yet not out of disgusted recognition. This was something primitive, something _raw_ : desire, lust and perplexity all fused together inside his charged gaze.

He covers the forms of her figure like hands, lured into dropping his attentions lower. Her one-shoulder dress is pale, laced and altogether dull, because the idea of extravagance took her back to a girl walking down the aisle towards a man who never heard her say yes. But a Queen now and no longer a scared, bullied bride, everything was made different.

She'd found simplicity helped with the pretense _within_ the pretense – that this wedding wasn't as relevant to her as it was made out to be.

All matters of modesty aside, he still looked as if he was about to get down on his knees, _by choice,_ and reverence her.

And all at once the spell was gone.

From shock to censure, from censure to control, from control to nonchalance - she'd had the chance to mourn each expression. The frustration in the pit of her stomach is what keeps her from laughing at his resolve, really; try as he might he couldn't fool her with simulated indifference any longer.

They had just become devastatingly real.

Before she could even dare to point this out, Robin pierced their twisted bubble of emotional revulsion and physical gravitation. "What do you want me to sign?" he queried, impatient like a man on a death row.

She kept herself unusually quiet as the contract emerged inside her hands. Awakened hormones had expelled any motivation to outwit or trick him, and being so, the long papyrus unfolded silently till the very top of her thighs.

Close and elevated and full of indistinct scents, Robin took the paper from her to dryly comment: "I'm guessing you won't let me read it."

There's a patronizing smirk on her lips when he faces her with quirked brows. Mockingly, she brings up the ridiculous hypothesis, "You're gonna say no?"

For a moment his brief pause suggests contestation, the upcoming outline of his jaw later showing he's given in. "Where's the ink?"

Regina envelops his hand in both of hers as a response - partially fascinated by the way he'd been ready to fight her touch. There's questions in his gaze she didn't feel like answering out of defiance alone. The prospect of how long would it take for him to be domesticated amuses her until it's roughly erased by him ripping his arm away.

Thirstily, Regina snapped, "This isn't your tavern's bill, _thief_ , I need your blood."

One lazy drop of red was starting to make its way down his middle finger as though to validate her. His survey darted from the cut to her face, a grimace of some kind on his upper lip. "You could have warned me."

"I could have also ripped out your arm, stanched the blood with the paper then signed it myself." She smiled tightly, the feature diminishing until she was scowling too. "Do you prefer that option?"

Wordlessly, Robin shifted his focus to the contract again. He glared at it as if the feat itself would crack an invisible guideline of magical items. But the next time she grasped his wrist and directed him to touch the middle of the document there was no confront.

With narrowed lids he suspiciously studied the skin that no longer bled after withdrawn from the paper. He didn't look up until a purple feather floated and shined on his peripheral vision.

Sensing he was about to study the object as well, she commanded, "Just sign it."

"But there's no ink-"

"Just _do it_." She gritted. And more out of curious confusion than obedience, he did.

Regina had thought he'd be used to magic at this rate, except he was just as fiercely awed to see his name emerging over blankness, letter by letter, and not in ink but in blood.

He blinked three or four times after all articles dissolved into thin air.

Swiftly his frigid exterior replaced the fleeting allure of magic. Staring back at her, his his eyes were loaded with so many emotions Regina could hardly name each. An unforeseen wave of finality had them finding solace in the other for the frailest of seconds.

"Happy?" Robin probed, husky voice despite the carefree intonation threaded with it. She was fairly positive the somber aspect of his face was mimicking her own.

She didn't falter to inch closer and sibilate, anyhow; "Madly. There are _bats_ in my stomach and all."

His smile in response was weird and mechanical, as if misery had forced his brain cells to function inversely. She cleared her throat in attempts to wipe out the premise of never ever knowing how his actual smile might be.

"Needless to say," she began, "this _agreement_ is sealed with blood, so it will be far easier for me to track you, kill you, or whatever inspires me to do in case you breach this." Regina smiled, feeling like _herself_ again, high on power and lethargy. "You will have your own bedroom and your own guards-"

"Can we just get this over with?"

" _And,_ " she reiterates with a glare, "we'll share all meals together, like one true _delighted_ couple, as well as public appearances for good measure. In the meantime, you'll do what you do with your gang of bohemians, giving them food and medicine and ale baths for all I care."

Tapping his chin lightly because he wasn't looking at her, two knuckles held his stubbly skin as she drowsily continued. "But if you ever forget any of this, overall, you simply must remember that you belong to _me_. Everywhere you go. Every word you say - your actions are _my_ actions now. Not theirs. Surely not yours. Do you understand?"

Boldy he grasped her wrist and set it away, an insane expression hinting he was about to speak or do the vilest of things to her. But he didn't, his surrender much more expected than his brief show of violence. She wondered if and how she would crack him.

She wished she didn't wonder if he was thinking the same.

Skin numb from where he touched, a flash of hurt tinged her victorious features. "Don't be late." She whispered, spinning and bolting out of the overly bright room. The habit of not giving him the last say barely reached her unsettled mind.

It was nine or ten steps away from there when she threw up her triumph on the corridor floor.


End file.
